We have another “I Googled You” t-shirt sighting! Reputation.com’s Senior Manager of Business Development, Noah Lang, sported the shirt on a recent trip to the majestic Grand Canyon. Check out the picture below.

If you’d like one of your own “I Googled You” t-shirts, call one of our Reputation.com customer support specialists today.

Yesterday, Wired reported that In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s investment arm, had made an investment into Visible Technologies, a Seattle-based social media monitoring company. According to the Wired article, In-Q-Tel’s investment is part of “a larger movement within the spy services to get better at using ‘open source intelligence’ — information that’s publicly available, but often hidden in the flood of TV shows, newspaper articles, blog posts, online videos and radio reports generated every day.”

After Wired broke this story, many news sources reported on it with a certain air of alarmism – “The CIA is going to spy on you!” – but, come on, it’s the CIA. Do you really think they haven’t already been snooping into social media sites? What is significant about the CIA’s investment into Visible Technologies isn’t that the CIA is monitoring foreign social media, but rather that social media technology has expanded so quickly in recent years that it touches on every aspect of our society, including national defense.

While there are certainly many legal and ethical issues involved in the CIA monitoring social media, namely the fear that American citizens will be monitored (something that is not supposed to occur within the CIA’s jurisdiction), the important thing for web users to consider is the fact that what you place online is never private. To ensure that what you say online doesn’t come back to hurt you in the future (or accidentally make you look like a terrorist-supporter) , you should always use caution in what you post to social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace.

Image via Devil’s Workshop

Last week on the Reputation.com Blog, we shared “Six Tips to Foil the Phishers.” Increasingly, however, phishing schemes are not only being perpetrated through e-mail, but also social networking sites. In fact, according to a recent CNN article,  a 2005 study from the University of Indiana found that phishing attacks on social networks were successful 70 percent of the time. That’s why, today, we’re going to offer some advice on how to protect yourself from phishing attacks on Facebook.

Trust, but Verify

Many phishers have taken advantage of Facebook users by posing as their friends and then asking them to wire money to cover some kind of emergency. While no one would suggest that you should ignore a friend in need, in the words of former President Ronald Reagan, you should “trust, but verify.” With Facebook expanding at an astronomic pace (the CNN article notes that the site now has over 300 million users worldwide), it is important for users to show discretion in answering messages. Before wiring your friend money, try and call him or her directly, or call someone close to him or her, to verify their story.

Check the URL

The majority of phishing attacks trick users into giving away their private information by directing them to fake websites that are specially designed to look like the real thing. While it is sometimes difficult to determine whether a site is authentic, (scammers are becoming more and more adept at designing near-perfect copies of websites) there are certain clues you can look for to help you spot a fake, namely the URL. One of the signs that a URL might be part of a phishing attack is the use of a subdomain, for example, http://customersupport.facebook.com. In this case, “customer support” is the subdomain. If you suspect you’ve opened a phishing website, you should close your browser and then attempt to access the website directly.

Go Easy on the Apps

If you use Facebook, you’ve probably received more than your fair share of weird requests. Whether it’s an invitation to play Mafia Wars, a quiz to find out which cast member of 90210 you are, or some other time-consuming, yet useless application, it is important that you use discretion in choosing which apps you add on to your page. Though many users don’t know it, by adding an external application, you are authorizing someone besides Facebook to access your private profile information. Furthermore, though Facebook tries their best to monitor each application that is submitted to the site, the volume of new applications is simply so great that some spam applications are bound to get in.

For more information on Internet privacy and Online Reputation Management issues, follow Reputation.com on Twitter.

This morning, the popular tech blog Engadget shared a fairly remarkable development regarding Google Voice, Google’s seven-month old telecommunications service. Apparently, Google has accidentally been indexing voice mails from Google Voice into public search results. The messages, which can be found by searching site:https://www.google.com/voice/fm/* in Google, range from calls made several months ago to calls made yesterday.

While many of the recorded messages are test calls, and therefore do not present a real privacy threat, there are a number of voicemails that contain actual calls from individuals who (rightfully) assumed they were leaving private messages for friends and family. How upset would you be if you heard your voice repeated back to you via a simple Internet search?

It is difficult to imagine a more gross violation of your privacy than having your calls recorded and shared on the world’s largest public search engine. While Google claims to have fixed this particular issue, there is no telling when something like this could happen again. As technology continues to evolve and become more complex, the likelihood that accidents such as this will occur only increases. The best way to ensure your private information stays secure is to be vigilant in monitoring and managing your name online.

Earlier today, we outlined how Google has finally acknowledged the importance of Online Reputation Management. In a post at the search giant’s Official Blog, Google advises web surfers to:

1) Think twice before putting your personal information online.

2) Contact webmaster to try to remove negative content from the site where it’s appearing.

3) Proactively publish useful, positive information about yourself or your business online.

Unfortunately, Google’s advice, while undeniably useful, is overly simplistic and vastly underestimates the considerable effort that goes into effectively managing one’s reputation online. Does the average web user really know how to find the contact information for the webmaster of a site? Do they know how to write strong, compelling copy that launches to the top of page one? Sadly, the answer is no. People need help managing their reputations online, which is why Reputation.com exists today.

It is disappointing that, after finally deciding to wade into the reputation management discussion, Google has come out so flatly. For a company that has so much control over how the Internet functions, one would expect Google to present its users with better and more nuanced wisdom.  While Google certainly isn’t the reason that libel and slander exist online (that’s a result of our own inability as a society to treat each other respectfully), the company could do far more to reduce the visibility of clearly false and defamatory content.

Improving your online reputation calls for real, tangible results. If this is what you need, it’s time to bring in the
experts.